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Saturday, March 2, 2013

A few considerations

We have had two posts dealing with descendants: The kids (Sept 2010) and Two generations (Oct 2010). Both of these posts used material from the work of individuals who have taken the time to post on rootsweb which has been around awhile. There are other sites, to boot. One can use these build composite trees.

Bevan's work is an example. He has merged multiple lines from the work of others. But, he does not have Thomas and Margaret.

Now, taking the work at rootsweb, a query on Thomas who died in 1674 brings up 822 trees. Of those, 722 have Margaret as wife. But, and here is the catch, of the 722, only 255 have sources. Following along with D.A.R. and the Hereditary Society Community (HSC), we ought to require sources. At the same time, we ought to allow expansions of a tree that are conjectural.

A lot of this rootsweb work may have been done by Thomas descendants. Many others may have been done by people looking at collateral families. Or, someone may have included the Gardners just to be complete. How much of it is believable?

One task might be to take Dr. Frank's numbering and then extend it to about three or four generations. Or, we could pick a time, say 1812, as the end of a span.

So, two basic issues are the technical aspects and verification. The former ought to leverage upon work that has been done on the computer for the past few decades. The latter may be more problematic.

In any case, one basic notion is to fund research on a continuing basis in a manner that persists across future generations. To accomplish that, it would be nice to have a reasonable starting point. Lots to look at and do.

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So, a slow build via incremental means has been the focus so far. As suggested by the Backbone category, there are many lessons to learn of a varied nature that is not small in breadth. One focus of late has been looking back across the pond, mainly to get acquainted with things. Hence, the focus of the next Beacon will be along that line, albeit in a brief fashion.

Many see posts almost like twits (tweets?) which have a small temporal footstep. We could see them as something that, at some point, could be pulled into a book. Of course, to do such a thing right would require major editing, but that is part of the work (editors exist for that purpose). The content would be there, though, which is the key.

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Too, there are several ways to communicate. Mass e-mailing will be limited. Annoucements will be by the TGS site and the TGS Forum. Right now, the TGS Forum is using a blackboard approach. Just like with the blog, there are several ways to support discussions. It would be good settle on a method that is effective with which to carry forward.

Remarks:

03/04/2013 -- Forgot to put the pointer to rootsweb. Today, there were 821 trees to this query: Surname (gardner), Given name (thomas), Death year (1674). Now, a slight change to the Death year of +/- 5 years increased the count to 897. If the TGS was going to be effectively used for this type of database entry, it would be by providing a place where one could get the facts, as they are best known. At this point, doing such a thing would require technical support as well as continuing scholarly work of a sponsored nature. Also, identify the Hereditary Society Community properly.

03/02/2013 -- What's New at the TGS site will post things of interest. The main page will provide the last change date for the What's New page.Modified: 03/04/2013